


Two Steps Forward

by eternal_teapot



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:40:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_teapot/pseuds/eternal_teapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is haphephobic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Steps Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaned up from an old BBC kink meme prompt, which can be found [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19351.html?thread=117037463#t117037463).

John flicked the earpieces of his stethoscope down behind his neck, absently tucked the diaphragm into his front pocket and out of his way, and began gently buttoning up the front of Sherlock’s loose nightshirt. A line of darkening bruises vanished beneath the closing vee of fabric, until the triangle of pale skin at Sherlock’s neck gave no hint of the injuries to his torso. Leaning over the bedside table, John neatly repacked his medical bag and then eyeballed the bag of half-melted ice. Sherlock was sleeping (fairly) comfortably, and the swelling was in check. Probably he could content himself with chucking the ice in the sink and checking in on Sherlock in a few hours. Less than a month into their cohabitation and Sherlock was in need of his medical services for the second time. Git.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “He should be fine. I think even Sherlock will stay in bed for the bulk of tomorrow. I’ll try to keep him from total boredom.”

“I appreciate your taking care of him.” Mycroft’s voice floated up from where he hovered behind John, and John caught a flash of hand headed toward his right shoulder in what was no doubt meant to be an appreciative shoulder squeeze. Knowing Mycroft, he’d calculated just the right amount of pressure and brevity to match the distant gratitude in his voice.

It didn’t take a Holmes, though, to detect John's flinch. The hand dropped back, but he could feel Mycroft’s eyes on him. “Is it everyone or just me?” John hauled himself to his feet, scooping up his kit and the towel-wrapped ice bag before turning to face Mycroft. Mycroft was studying him intently, his hands now in his trouser pockets. “I won’t be in the least offended if it’s the latter.”

John knew that he was all but holding himself at attention but couldn’t seem to soften the line of shoulders. Mycroft was only slowly transitioning from archenemy in a warehouse _\--Show me--_ to inquisitive elder brother, but it wasn’t a memory of black cars or darkened warehouses that was ever present, buzzing beneath his skin. “It isn’t just you.”

Mycroft tilted his head, rocking back on his heels. “And yet you’ve chosen a profession which requires you to touch people almost daily, and you share a flat with my brother, whose concept of personal space is roughly on par with that of a six month old Labrador retriever.” John really didn’t need to add Mycroft of all people to the list of individuals telling him that he was barking for living with Sherlock Holmes. He braced himself for a thinly veiled judgment on his intelligence, but Mycroft was already headed out the door. “Do let me know how my brother gets on tomorrow, Doctor.”

* * *

  _When he wakes up to find Harry at the side of his hospital bed, John doesn’t know what to think. His latest tour had been something of a blessing for their relationship. He’d genuinely liked Clara, and she had been the one to tell him (in response to his own increasingly confused emails) “Haven’t you heard...?” No, he_ hadn’t _, but there wasn’t much he could do about Harry’s continuing drinking from another country, particularly if she was too ashamed to tell him anything. His messages back and forth with his sister have been frustrated, stilted, and short ever since.  
_

_Still. She is here waiting for him, and she is--wonder of wonders--sober. She is crying, because he’s been shot._ He has been shot, _and he’s had days in and out of surgery, and of waking up disoriented, and of nurses’ impersonal hands all over him, and of needing help to sit up, and eat, and_ piss _. And Harry is sitting there, twisting her hands into the strap of her handbag to avoid reaching out to hug him. “S’all right, Harry. I’m fine.” He reaches out and squeezes her hand. If he is still heavily medicated and exhausted from the flight, and slips back into unconsciousness before she squeezes back, it is probably better for both of them._

* * *

 “Did you do the exercises I gave you?” Ella Thompson left her notepad flat on her lap, probably as some twisted kind of test.

“The trust falls? Yes. Yes. They went fine. A bit awkward. But fine.”

She tapped her pen on the paper. One. Two. Three. Four. “You didn’t do them, did you?”

“...No.” Not for the first time, John cursed the fact that he was a shit liar. But Ella has chalked up his reluctance to do these “exercises” to his PTSD. He was fine with that. Better than fine, in fact. Because at least when people blamed his PTSD for the way he held himself and his need to know where they are, for his need to control the space around him, he could point to that big, ugly war, as if to say, “See? Not my fault.” Even when they didn’t understand the trauma, or when they flat-out disagreed with the war and the people who fought it (and, oh God, did they ever), they could at least usually acknowledge that it was a real thing, outside of him, with real consequences.

But there was nothing more excruciating than having someone who loved him feel his every muscle go rigid and ask “What happened to you?” and having no answer but “I don’t know.” The truth was that he would rather hit the floor a thousand times over than fall backward, just _waiting_ for someone’s hands to grab him from behind, but he could not tell Ella this.

Even if he did, he did not want to start in on the great psychological search for the root of his phobia--there was nothing to find. His parents weren’t abusive; neither were they neglectful. But at some point receiving hugs or kisses from his mother had shifted from being vaguely comforting, to distinctly _un_ comfortable, and then to outright horrifying. He’d fortunately been of an age to pass it off as adolescent embarrassment and started ostentatiously walking several feet apart from her whenever they were in public. If his radiating teenage angst had hurt her, she’d been too kind to say so.

* * *

  _“John Watson” is not a cuddler. He is, in fact, a bit of a skirt-chaser. He works quite hard to make that fact readily apparent, thank you. Shortly after he’d figured out how to keep his mother from hugging him (and his sister from good-naturedly rough-housing with him--bonus!), John had realized that girls were going to be a problem. Specifically, his mates kept bringing them up in conversation, and his prick seemed to have developed a mind of its own. And...he_ wanted _to touch people. It wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with Mitch that getting Mary to let him get a hand up her shirt sounded like a fine idea--for a second, until thinking about it made his chest ache and his vision tunnel. Or that he hadn’t_ missed _the way his mum could make him feel safe that day he’d landed himself a compound fracture. But every time even his best mates come near him seems worse than the last. Strangers are even worse--he folds in on himself, hyper-aware of every fraction of an inch between him and others. Walking down the street is an exercise in escape and evasion, and riding the bus becomes a long misery--he_ _is that wanker who_ _sets_ _his bag next to him on the seat; he fakes coughs to discourage fellow passengers from getting near him; he tries huddling against the window and closing his eyes, but not knowing when the accidental brush is coming is worst of all.  
_

_No. Even if he could somehow satisfy himself_ with _himself, there is no way to avoid the constant press of other people, and no way to avoid the equally ubiquitous expectation that he welcome their attention (and really, why couldn’t people just like him without constantly wanting their hands all over him?). So John develops part one of what would become his _modus operandi_ : he starts playing rugby.  
_

_To his utter relief, it is different when there is only an instant for thought before contact. He cultivates a moving meditation: on the pitch, rhythms are all muscle memory, reflex, awareness of his team. A scintilla of time could find him flat on his back or in the press of the scrum, and until the end of the half he could have almost uninterrupted breathlessness. If there is touch, he either forces it himself or barely sees it coming, and if his pulse pounds in his ears, he can tell himself it’s the strain he’s putting on his muscles.  
_

_So. Forward. He forces himself to shake hands firmly, always making the first move. He flirts light-heartedly with women and earns a reputation for never staying over and never dating long. (Sarah is hardly the first woman who relegates him to the lilo). He wears his friendliness and quiet extroversion like a suit of armor. And, of course, he studies medicine and goes to war._ Forward, Johnny. Forward.

* * *

“It’s a phobia, Sherlock. It’s _irrational._ There’s nothing for you to solve.” John shook off his flatmate’s fingers and jerked backwards, if only because if he moved forward he would have automatically followed the movement with a fist. He could feel the edginess clawing out from under his skin even as the pressure in his chest smothered inward on his lungs, and the last thing he wanted was to see Sherlock I’m-so-bloody-brilliant Holmes staring at him with those weirdly invasive eyeballs. He backed up another two feet.

“It’s entirely in your mind, John. It’s no more real than your limp--you could get rid of it if you _tried._ ”

And that was just--. As if _Can’t you just_ try _it_? is not a refrain he’d heard dozens of times before. His mind completely blanked under the welling frustration, and John pivoted and charged down the steps before he could think of any coherent response.

* * *

“May I?” Mycroft gestured at the shallow wound in John’s side. Lestrade had cornered Sherlock to explain what the hell they were doing here, and John had taken the opportunity to slouch against a car bumper, one hand absently applying pressure to stop the bleeding. He placed himself to keep Sherlock in sight, if only because he wanted to be able to go home soon. But he didn’t need Mycroft to turn his smothering interference in his direction.

“No.” The word was out of his mouth before it occurred to him that Mycroft evidently meant “May I?” rather than “Show me.” His heels dug into the pavement, pressing him more firmly against the car, and Mycroft placed the hand not holding his umbrella deep in his pocket. John flushed at the obvious handling but couldn’t seem to help unbending a little as the hand disappeared. He was fiercely glad when Mycroft excused himself for a word with Lestrade. Musing on Mycroft’s restraint, he wondered if Sherlock’s sudden interest in his...problem was his brother’s doing, or if what was so invisible to his therapist was just one of all the other things so obvious to both the Holmeses. Did they talk about him? Did they need to? John snorted. They both had better things to do. _  
_

* * *

 He started to wake up the moment his feet hit the floor but hadn't fully shaken off the fog of sleep when his back hit the corner of the room.

“John?” John blinked up into the light. Sherlock rounded the bed uncertainly, wearing an old t-shirt and blue pajama bottoms.

Feeling raw, John scraped a hand over his face and discovered--mortified--that he’d been crying. He glanced up at the bed; most of the covers are in a heap on the floor, and one of his pillows was still clenched in his right fist. “Was there something you needed, Sherlock?” He hauled himself up and began putting the bedding to rights. Sherlock watched him in silence until the sheets and pillows were razor-straight, hospital corners securely tucked.

“I wanted to wake you sooner, but you didn’t hear me, and I assumed touching you would be a bad idea.”

The sound that emerged from his mouth is almost a laugh. John eased himself back down on the bed and leans back against the wall. “Yes, Sherlock. Grabbing your PTSD-ridden, haphephobic flatmate in the middle of a nightmare would have been a bad idea.” John closed his tiredly, but the sound of Sherlock’s feet headed for the door did not reward him. “Good _night,_ Sherlock.”

The mattress dipped next to him. John has grown accustomed to Sherlock pushing into his personal space by now, but it was late, and he was _naked_ with exhaustion and the memory of a man dying, warm blood unstoppable under his hands. “Does it help if you can see it coming?”

John opened his eyes. “Usually. Sometimes I just dread it more.”

Sherlock had tucked one leg under him on the bed so that he faced John. Slowly he raised a hand, index finger outstretched. John forced himself to stillness as Sherlock pressed gently into the center of his forehead and paused, watching his face intently for the faintest hint of _no_. Then the finger dropped to the dip between his brows, following the line of his orbital bone and around to his temple, languidly back across his cheek and along the length of his nose. Sherlock moved at an even pace, unbothered by the remnants of John’s crying jag. The fingertip skipped over his mouth, leaping to his chin. Still cautious, Sherlock folded his fingers and continued the motion back along the jaw with the backs of his fingers, the pad of a thumb. He stopped at the ear and cradled John’s head, thumb gently soothing along the zygomatic bone. They remained nearly motionless and breathing in tandem for a full minute before Sherlock speaks again. “All right?”

It was...as good as it ever was, he supposed, which is probably not the answer Sherlock wanted. So he said, “It’s fine.”

Sherlock dropped his hand at once and stood up. “Good night, John.”

_In spite of his friend’s obvious disappointment, he is glad the bed is empty as the door closes._


End file.
